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Is this the world's worst babysitter?

By Mitch Hotts, The Macomb Daily

Posted:
09/03/2013 06:39:09 PM MDT

(Getty Images)

A 26-year-old woman in Michigan is in trouble with the law -- and her employer -- after she was arrested over the weekend in Oakland County for drunken driving while she was supposed to be babysitting a little boy in Rochester Hills.

To make matters worse, the woman was driving the boy's mother's car -- without her permission.

Oakland County Sheriff's deputies were called to a home on the 300 block of Meadow Bridge in Rochester Hills about 1:30 a.m. Saturday after the mother arrived home and was unable to get inside of her house because she had given the babysitter the only key.

“Deputies found the complainant at her doorstep crying hysterically,' police said in a news release.

The mother told investigators that she had left her 16-month-old son with the babysitter about 2 p.m. on Friday. She did not give her permission to take the car and had hidden the car key.

When the mother returned home, she discovered her car was missing and she couldn't get into the house. With sheriff's deputies at her doorstep, she called the babysitter's cell phone. It was answered by a Farmington Hills police officer who advised her the babysitter had been taken into custody on suspicion of operating while intoxicated after she crashed the vehicle.

The mother also learned her son was not with the babysitter.

That's when sheriff's deputies forced entry into the woman's house and found the child safe but unattended in a baby swing chair in a bedroom.

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Police later learned the babysitter had been seen with the child at a nearby store by a friend but it was unknown how long the child had been left alone.

The mother told police she left her son with the babysitter 4-5 times a week.

The mother's car was impounded by Farmington Hills police, who will handle the drunken driving end of the case. The sheriff's department is conducting an investigation into potential child neglect charges against the babysitter and also notified the Sheriff's Auto Theft Unit.